4 public cloud trends to watch for

Cloud computing has become a near-necessity for the modern business, and the public cloud is leading the way. According to a 2018 survey, 92 percent of organizations now use the public cloud in some fashion.

The top public cloud providers — such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform — are highly popular and offer a broad suite of services, from business analytics to virtual reality applications. With so many companies using the public cloud, following trends in the industry is more important than ever.

In this article, we’ll discuss four of the most exciting new tech trends that will be coming soon to a public cloud near you.

1. Increased Storage

Cisco projects that, by the end of 2018, the available global cloud storage capacity will increase to roughly 1.1 zettabytes — doubling in just one year. This massive expansion in space will bring major benefits to organizations relying on big data to extract business insights from raw information. This is especially true as more data centers adopt cutting-edge storage solutions such as solid-state drives (SSDs).

The increase in storage will help smaller businesses using the public cloud as well. With more space available, companies will have more (and cheaper) options for a custom storage solution.

2. Containers

“Containers” are an abstraction that separates an application and the environment in which it runs, making it easy to consistently deploy and manage the application. This portability, efficiency and straightforward separation of concerns has made containers a highly popular technology of late for use in the public cloud.

In late 2017, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure announced their support for the container orchestration system Kubernetes, which was already created and supported by Google. This makes it much easier for developers to work across multiple clouds and deliver a predictable user experience.

3. Machine Learning

Machine learning, which enables computers to “learn” and make better decisions, requires vast amounts of both data and processing power. For many organizations, the public cloud is uniquely capable of offering these services at scale.

The major public cloud providers already supply services such as Google Cloud’s AutoML, which make it easy for developers with limited machine learning experience to get started. Amazon’s SageMaker, released in November 2017, offers similar benefits. In the near future, expect to see more of these services roll out.

4. Security Concerns

Despite the tantalizing target posed by the public cloud for malicious actors, there have been relatively few cyberattacks on public cloud infrastructure. This is largely because major providers are so good at creating layers of protection, monitoring for suspicious activity and pushing out updates at regular intervals.

Nevertheless, a variety of security challenges will continue to plague public cloud customers. These include data breaches, account hijackings, insider threats and denial of service attacks. In addition, the recently discovered Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities open the backdoor for hackers to read sensitive information from a device’s CPU, which could have major repercussions for cloud providers.

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